Collections of Resources on Education for Sustainability and Green Living

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

What’s one thing that you’d like to see educators try out in 2018?

We asked the TED-Ed Innovative Educators to share their favorite ideas. Here’s what they suggest:

It’s 2018! Drop the double-negative zero. Let students revise until they get it right. And get your students to deliver TED-Ed Club talks! — Josefino Rivera

It’s time to realize that as long as we keep telling our students that their average matters more than the value of their creativity and the quality of their character, we will continue to graduate generations of young people who only see school as a hoop to jump through. Students deserve more. — Karen Goepen-Wee

Expose students to the process of design thinking. This allows them to solve real-world problems and to expand their creativity. — Jenny Lehotsky

Explore more technology options, so that students are exposed to a global classroom. Both teachers and students should be willing to change the way they learn in a classroom. — Maggie Muuk

Encourage students to embrace difficult and courageous conversations, leaning into discomfort of disagreements for understanding and empathy. — Nola-Rae Cronan

Empower students and teachers to explore Sustainable Development Goals. — Yau-Jau Ku

Let the kids think for themselves. Teach the kids to be curious and act upon it. Teach them to research. — Sharon Hadar

Bring mindfulness into the lives of our students and educators to create more peace in the world. — Pen-Pen Chen

I think its time to introduce more critical/independent thinking. I would love to have TED-Ed Clubs in the curriculum. — Malgorzata Guzicka

Assign a super-ambitious project, and go through the entire process yourself before the students give it a shot. — Jimmy Juliano

Transform schools into hubs for critical thinking, creativity and innovation. We can do this by supporting project-based learning, design thinking and maker-space initiatives. — Jorge Alvarez

Let’s allow students the flexibility in their research, writing, speaking, and projects to explore ideas and topics that matter to them. Let’s stimulate intellectual curiosity. — Mitzi Stover

I would love to see a concentrated focus on teaching conflict resolution skills and healthy means of expressing civil discourse. — Shannon Brake

Build/modify an activity that asks the students to interact with another student, teacher, parent, or friend outside of their classroom. The goal is to work with someone different as a team and be available for feedback or give a different perspective. — Corey Holmer

Create a classroom full of globally literate students with empathy and understanding. — Kim Preshoff

Inspire an overall LOVE of learning in your students by connecting them to people and places outside the walls of your classroom or school. — Jen Hesseltine

Empower students to create their own lessons about things that they learned and love and want to share with peers. — Lisa Winer

Use the power of interactive storytelling to create memorable and engaging classroom experiences. — Tim Couillard

I’d like to see teachers try thinking and operating outside their comfort zones. We come to the profession with our own biases, and I’d love to see people throw that out and try something that makes them uncomfortable and let their students watch them grow and learn alongside their students. And salsa dancing. Every teacher should try salsa dancing. — Carla Staffa